Poove Unakkaga 1996

Sadasivam M. N. Nambiar and Stephen Nagesh were lifelong family friends, a bond that endured for generations until Sadhasivam’s daughter Janaki fell in love with Stephen’s son Robert. The romance crossed lines of faith, triggering a fierce opposition between the two households. When the couple eloped and wed, both families cast them out, and the rift blossomed into a deep, lasting enmity. Vasudevan Malaysia Vasudevan is Sadhasivam’s son, and Moses Jai Ganesh is Stephen’s son, carrying the feud into a new generation.

Twenty-five years later, a letter arrives from Raja, the son of Robert and Janaki, who travels to the town with his friend Gopi Charle. Both families explode with anger at the sight of him, refusing to let Raja stay under their roofs. Vasudevan and Moses rally the street to deny any rental to Raja and Gopi, while Velangiri warmly welcomes Raja into his home, offering shelter and a quieter corner of the town to bridge the growing divide. The older generations—Ranganayaki and Rosy in particular—pretend to remain angry, yet a quiet current of longing to see their grandchild still runs beneath the surface.

Raja soon realizes that beneath the outward hostility, a few family members truly yearn for reunion, and he resolves to act as a unifier. He builds trust slowly, getting close to the grandparents and testing the waters of reconciliation. To complicate matters, Ranganayaki and Rosy start hinting at arranged marriages for Raja, while Raja fabricates a web of fiction to keep peace: he claims to be already married to a girl named Nirmala Mary, nicknamed Nimmy, to avoid any direct romantic entanglements that could derail his mission.

That deception tumbles into a revelation when Nirmala arrives at Velangiri’s home and declares she is Raja’s wife. Raja is taken aback and cannot reveal the truth without undermining the fragile harmony he’s cultivated. Nirmala, however, exposes that she is really Priyadarshini — Priya — the daughter of Robert and Janaki. Priya hints that the only link to Raja’s world is Velangiri, who keeps tabs on town happenings. Priya questions Raja’s motives, and Raja opens up about his true mission: to heal the rift between the families and bring love, not religion, to the fore.

In a flashback, Raja recounts his own past: an orphan living with Gopi in Chennai, where a girl named Nandhini—Vasudevan’s daughter—lives in a nearby hostel. Raja and Nandhini grow close, their friendship blossoming into love, despite the barrier of the feud between their families. Nandhini’s love for Lawrence, Moses’s son, intensifies the conflict, threatening the fragile balance Raja hopes to achieve.

Determined, Raja orchestrates a path to unity by mediating a truth-filled conversation between the feuding factions. He negotiates a change of hearts, urging the families to see that love surpasses religious and caste boundaries. Nandhini and Lawrence consider conversion as a means to unity, and the families gradually begin to deserve a chance at happiness.

At last, the day of the wedding arrives. Robert and Janaki descend with forgiveness in their eyes, and the families welcome them back, realizing it was Raja who rekindled the bond. They acknowledge that Raja—Vijay—was the one who mended the rift and restored the warmth that had been missing for decades. Priya steps forward, revealing that Raja is the friend who helped unite the clans, and the family contemplates a match between Raja and Nandhini, though Raja insists he is already in love with Nandhini and cannot imagine loving another.

As the town exults in reconciliation, Raja walks away from the gathered crowd, choosing to face life on his own terms. The film closes on a nuanced note: a homecoming of families restored, love affirmed, and a lone figure stepping forward to write a new chapter, where faith and kinship are not barriers but bridges.